Tone and intonation: Beyond the obvious

Tone and intonation share the common feature of being carried mainly by the fundamental frequency of voice (F0). The ease of obtaining F0 measurements, thanks to the wide availability of software tools and the fact that F0 is largely one-dimensional, have allowed researchers to perform extensive studies on tone and intonation. But ease of observation does not necessarily mean ease of understanding. In fact, the very fact that the same acoustic dimension is involved in both tone and intonation means that their respective contributions to surface F0 contours cannot be easily taken apart [Xu 2004]. Even with regard to intonation alone, there are multiple communicative functions that are co-encoded but hard to disentangle [Hirst 2005]. Furthermore, both tone and intonation are subject to various articulatory mechanisms that all leave indelible marks on the observable surface acoustic patterns [Xu 2005]. Much effort is needed, therefore, to identify the specific communicative functions, their corresponding prosodic properties and the articulatory mechanisms that are behind the surface prosodic patterns. The papers presented in this discussant session all made interesting findings that go toward this goal.